Time for a tale regarding yard sales and video game resellers. This will be mostly the same as the FB version of my story, but I'll be more detailed here.

In the local paper, there was an ad for a rummage sale yesterday. Among the items listed were a Vizio HDTV and a Nintendo DSi system. I have been wanting an older DS model for a long time, and the DSi would fit the bill. Unfortunately, I work in the morning, so I had to miss most of the sale and arrived at the residence mid afternoon.

By the time I arrived, the DSi was long gone. The lady who was running the sale did kindly tell me what was included in the DSi set, and it was a lot. The set contained the DSi console, charger, instruction manual, extra styluses, a carrying case, and three games... Scribblenauts, an unknown Kirby game, and Kung Fu Panda. I felt a bit down about missing a potential video game deal, but I went about my day regardless.

Later on, I stopped by the local flea market to look around for anything new and interesting. My focus is odd electronics and video games. Lo and behold, once I got to the video game section, guess what I saw?

Yep. I found the exact same DSi set the lady described to me, though by now, the reseller raised the price to $65 and priced the three games separately. I don't know what the original price was at the rummage sale, but it's likely nowhere near the new $65 price tag. In the end, I did get the console and the Kirby game, which turned out to be Kirby Mass Attack. I was hoping for Super Star Ultra, but hey, I got one of the DS Kirby games.

One nice thing either the original seller or the reseller did was reset the DSi to factory settings. It's great that people do care about their personal data and will go through and delete the old stuff before it's resold. The downside is that any old DSiWare games that were downloaded previously are wiped clean. It's not that much of a negative since you can still get DSiWare from the 3DS eShop.

The console itself is in rather good condition, so it probably wasn't used too much. BTW, the name in the above photo, "Kessie", was my choosing. A reference to "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" actually.

I'm actually mulling about getting a used DS, but eh, for now I'll stick to Drastic for my dual-screen fix. Still it wouldn't hurt to play games on the actual hardware just to catch up on what I've been missing on.

In retrospect, I really should have bought a DS during it's prime, either the Lite or the DSi. I was in college then, and it would have made a perfect companion when I wasn't studying or bored of surfing the web. The DS was also affordable, so I still don't know why I didn't hop on board until the 3DS came around. I nearly bought one on sale one year because I was interested in GBA games, but never went through.

Probably because of the portability and the uniqueness of DS/3DS games, my tastes have started shifting towards said portable systems. It helps that some retro games were ported over with enhanced features.

I want to save up for a Switch, which people thought was the logical successor to the 3DS and Wii U. But 3DS/2DS is still somewhat popular in the states. Even so, if Nintendo were to make something like the 4DS, wouldn't it confuse their fans a bit? Nintendo obviously wants to make the Switch a success, and so far, has done so. But if they were to come out with a 3DS successor, they would really need to come up with a good reason to do so. Market the 3DS successor exclusively to kids while making the Switch the "hardcore" system?

It makes me want to put my Switch plans on hold. I love the 3DS, and I am starting to find more time to play games on the system again. If a so-called 4DS were to come out, who knows if I would want to place my money on that over a Switch.

BTW, interesting new theme here. I would ditch the emerald green and go with a cyan or blue color instead.

I want to save up for a Switch, which people thought was the logical successor to the 3DS and Wii U. But 3DS/2DS is still somewhat popular in the states. Even so, if Nintendo were to make something like the 4DS, wouldn't it confuse their fans a bit? Nintendo obviously wants to make the Switch a success, and so far, has done so. But if they were to come out with a 3DS successor, they would really need to come up with a good reason to do so. Market the 3DS successor exclusively to kids while making the Switch the "hardcore" system?

It makes me want to put my Switch plans on hold. I love the 3DS, and I am starting to find more time to play games on the system again. If a so-called 4DS were to come out, who knows if I would want to place my money on that over a Switch.

BTW, interesting new theme here. I would ditch the emerald green and go with a cyan or blue color instead.

I agree. If they did it wrong Nintendo could potentially end up in the same situation as Sega did, with too many systems for them to support and a fragmented user base.

As for the new theme, I had to ditch BootBB as embedded videos don't seem to work for some reason. And I do plan on changing it to blue once I get the CSS stuff sorted out, don't worry.

Today is an end of a chapter for me. I'm selling off the remainder of my NES and SNES cartridge collections with some exceptions.

Game collecting at one time was fun because prices were lower and I actually had the time to play those games. Now, with my new job and daily activities around town, I really only have free time on weekends and off-work days to play games. Because of that, nearly all of my cartridges have been sitting collecting dust. It's also more logical to sell these carts off to allow other collectors to build their libraries so all is not lost.

The games I won't sell are my copies of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (unless Nintendo brings it to the Switch or 3DS VC), my Chinese pirate multicarts (game stores consider these worthless), and my Sega Genesis collection.

I'm still undecided on what retro emulation device I will go with. I have actually considered getting a used 3DS or Wii console and installing CFW. The hacking route still needs research since such tricks require an exploitable game and fiddling around with an SD card on both PC and the target console. I could even hack my old Neo Geo X if I wanted to.

Though the Wii option is rather interesting since most older models can run GameCube discs.

If you're going towards the emulation route on a console, I'd say a burner unit would suffice to prevent the other devices you invested from getting bricked. That accounts for why I have two LeapFrog Epics or Nabi SEs.

Speaking of Wii homebrew, you could use a hacked Wii to rip games off them and play said rips on Dolphin in your PC. Since your i3-6100 rig is reasonably fine to handle at least some games, it shouldn't be a hassle. I've tested the GC version of Lemony Snicket on the latest Dolphin build and it runs fluently on 1080p, widescreen hacked (with Gecko codes to disable culling on the sides of the screen), albeit with some stutters either due to shader cache or the external hard drive being slow.

Well, with the money I got for the games, I could have got a Switch and Super Mario Odyssey, but I had other things that were more important, like printer cartridges for my new-in-box Canon printer I bought a few weeks ago at Dollar General that didn't include the required carts, even though the box says they are included. Perhaps that is why DG sold the Pixma MG2520 for $20? Hmmm....

I also went to Menards, and found yet another cheap TV gadget from China. A "QFX" Android TV Box and Wireless Router. Yes, this is one of those tiny streaming boxes with Android/Kodi, promising access to things like Netflix, Hulu, etc. It also can function as a wireless router with it's built in ethernet port and can read from SD cards and USB drives. It also has a remote control. The packaging itself is a mystery, really only providing details that I just described. The manual is no better either. The model number is ABX-12 and if the box is to be believed, it has an Amlogic S-905X Quad-core ARM CPU.

I will be running a full battery of tests on this thing from a routine virus scan to usefulness as a streaming media box. Don't know when the review will be posted though, but hopefully in the next week or so if I remember.
Oh, forgot to add. I will also go ahead and schedule a non-warranty RMA for my Wii U gamepad. If you recall, the touchscreen got a small but deep scratch during my move last fall, and the gamepad has been a bit wonky since then, occasionally registering touch input near the damaged spot. Since the damage is not covered by warranty, I need to pay for the repair.

(07-22-2018, 11:53 AM)cpd2009 Wrote: Well, with the money I got for the games, I could have got a Switch and Super Mario Odyssey, but I had other things that were more important, like printer cartridges for my new-in-box Canon printer I bought a few weeks ago at Dollar General that didn't include the required carts, even though the box says they are included. Perhaps that is why DG sold the Pixma MG2520 for $20? Hmmm....

I also went to Menards, and found yet another cheap TV gadget from China. A "QFX" Android TV Box and Wireless Router. Yes, this is one of those tiny streaming boxes with Android/Kodi, promising access to things like Netflix, Hulu, etc. It also can function as a wireless router with it's built in ethernet port and can read from SD cards and USB drives. It also has a remote control. The packaging itself is a mystery, really only providing details that I just described. The manual is no better either. The model number is ABX-12 and if the box is to be believed, it has an Amlogic S-905X Quad-core ARM CPU.

I will be running a full battery of tests on this thing from a routine virus scan to usefulness as a streaming media box. Don't know when the review will be posted though, but hopefully in the next week or so if I remember.
Oh, forgot to add. I will also go ahead and schedule a non-warranty RMA for my Wii U gamepad. If you recall, the touchscreen got a small but deep scratch during my move last fall, and the gamepad has been a bit wonky since then, occasionally registering touch input near the damaged spot. Since the damage is not covered by warranty, I need to pay for the repair.

$20 for a Pixma? Typical. Well since they're being sold by a razor-and-blades basis anyway; ribbon and laser printers are extortionately expensive for that very reason.

If you could do a Malwarebytes scan of the TV Box's ROM for any embedded malware it would help with whatever review you leave of it on Amazon. Even supposedly reputable yet bargain-grade brands like those random-acronym vendors here in the PH tend to sell phones with crap embedded in /system. Like for instance the ZH&K Odyssey Pure a fellow XDA member asked me to do a TWRP port of:

zf_shulian_fota.apk is flagged by most if not all antivirus engines, though the XDA dude probably won't mind as he's going to port a custom ROM for that device anyway.

And I'm nor surprised with Nintendo at all, really. After all they are known for being quite draconian and myopic towards third-party developers and fans alike.